Sepp Blatter Asked by UK Government to Release Report on World Cup Bidding

The British government has asked FIFA president Sepp Blatter to publicly release the evidence collected by Michael Garcia, which led to the exoneration of Russia and Qatar in the controversy surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process.     

According to The Guardian's Owen Gibson, Culture Secretary Sajid Javid penned a letter to Blatter asking him to publish the entirety of the report or else suffer a major hit to the sport's reputation.

"Without the disclosure of the full report, FIFA risks not just further damage to its own credibility, but now significant damage to the reputation of football as a whole," wrote Javid.

Garcia's investigation, which produced 200,000 pages of evidence, was sent to FIFA in September. The organization subsequently cleared Russia and Qatar, both of which have been under heat for suspicion of tampering with the World Cup bidding process, leading to an appeal of the interpretation by Garcia himself.

It has certainly been a messy situation, and the British government getting involved is only going to bring down more pressure on Blatter and FIFA.

Even so, Alex Horne, general secretary of the Football Association, has confirmed that England's participation in the massive international tournament is not at stake, per The Associated Press' Rob Harris:

Getting FIFA to budge and release its findings seems like an extraordinarily tall task, but it's abundant this issue isn't close to being resolved.